This collection of short stories featured, Minority report, Imposter, Second Variety, War Game, When the dead men say, Oh to be a blobel! The electric ant, Faith of our fathers and We can remember it for you wholesale. Minority report I have to say was much better than the film, much more on the nature of crime and society, and the Tom Cruise character was old, bald and fat! :) Imposter and Secound variety were both brilliant cold war paranoia. Secound variety I think was my favourite story in the book. The Earth was a post nuclear wasteland with only a handfull of soliders left and robots that the Americans had designed to destroy the Russians, who had now started building their own humanoid models. What the dead men say was quite disturbing, voices from beyond the grave and mad girls. Electric Ant was about someone who discovered they were actually an android and then things got very strange. Faith of our Fathers, set in a communist distopian future where God and the devil were the same. We can remember it for you wholesale was the story basis for Total Recall, and I have to say I think I preferred the film. In the film it felt that what he was experiencing was more than likely his implanted memories. In the book it definitely wasn't. But then the ending still managed to have a nice twist.
It's been awhile since I've read any Philip K Dick and this reminded me how much I love his stories. I think his short stories may actually be better than his novels as he was much better at situations and atmosphere than he was at characterisation. Though I do still like his novels.
...ContinuaI have always thought that PKD's short stories is way better than his novels, especially to new readers of him. Or if you are interested in the idea, not the depth, of a SF story.
And PKD is very good at delivering his idea through short stories. You will also notice that some stories were later developed into a full length novel, like "The Penultimate truth" and "The three stigmas of Palmer Eldritch" was from this collection. So it is safe to say that these short stories are testing grounds for his novels. And even those which were not elaborated were also great in themselves!
...Continua
